UN expert on extrajudicial executions calls upon Kenyan Government to establish an independent investigation into the assassination today of two prominent Kenyan human rights defenders

The shocking assassination in Nairobi today of two prominent Kenyan human rights defenders must be independently investigated, according to the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Professor Philip Alston.

At approximately 6.00 pm in Nairobi on 5 March, gunmen killed two members of the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic, a human rights organisation providing free legal aid services to the poor. Those killed were the Founder and CEO of the Oscar Foundation, Mr Oscar Kamau Kingara, and the Communications and Advocacy Director, Mr John Paul Oulu. The two human rights defenders were on their way to a meeting with a senior human rights officer of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights when they were shot at point-blank range, sitting in their car in heavy traffic near Nairobi University.

Alston said that he had met with both men during his February 2009 UN fact-finding mission to Kenya and that they had provided him with testimony on the issue of police killings in Nairobi and Central Province.

“It is extremely troubling when those working to defend human rights in Kenya can be assassinated in broad daylight in the middle of Nairobi”, said Alston. “This constitutes a major threat to the rule of law, regardless of who might be responsible for the killings”, he added. Alston noted that “there is an especially strong onus on the Kenyan Government to arrange for an independent investigation into these killings given the circumstances surrounding them. Those circumstances include a statement attributed to a Government spokesman, Mr Alfred Mutua, publicly denouncing the Oscar Foundation for its links to the illegal Mungiki sect, and another statement attributed to Police Spokesman, Mr Eric Kiraithe, that a major security operation was ‘definitely going to get’ those responsible for recent demonstrations attributable to
the Mungiki.”

In 2007, the Oscar Foundation had published a report titled “License to kill: Extrajudicial execution and police brutality in Kenya”, which documented killings by police in Kenya. The Oscar Foundation also testified before parliamentarians on this issue in February and March 2009.

Alston said that it was inevitable under the circumstances for suspicion to fall upon the police in relation to these killings. “It is imperative, if the Kenyan Police are to be exonerated, for an independent team to be called from somewhere like Scotland Yard or the South African Police to investigate”, he said. He noted that there is no existing independent unit capable of investigating possible police misconduct in Kenya. He also stated that he had received reports that an eyewitness at the scene was also wounded, and may have been taken away by the police.

Background

The UN Special Rapporteur carried out a fact-finding mission at the invitation of the Government of Kenya from 16-25 February 2009. His preliminary statement found that killings by police were “systematic, widespread, and carefully planned”. The full statement is available at http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.extrajudicialexecutions.org.

Professor Alston was appointed Special Rapporteur in 2004 and reports to the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly. He has had extensive experience in the human rights field. Further information about the mandate of the Special Rapporteur is available at:
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://extrajudicialexecutions.org%2Fabout%2Fmandate.html.

Q&A-Assassinations follow resurgence of Kenya crime gang
Fri Mar 6, 2009 5:38am EST
Reuters.com
By Barry Moody

NAIROBI, March 6 (Reuters) - The assassination of two Kenyan human rights campaigners following the resurgence of a feared mafia-type crime gang has added to concerns over instability in east Africa's biggest economy.

Following are questions and answers about the Mungiki sect and the implications of their activities and the assassinations for Kenya's emergence from its political crisis.

WHAT IS THE MUNGIKI?

The gang is a semi-religious sect formed from Kenya's biggest tribe, the Kikuyu, in the central highlands. Claiming to be heirs of Mau Mau rebels who fought British colonial rule, the Mungiki emerged from a strictly religious movement called the Tent of the Living God, which rejected Christianity and espoused traditional Kikuyu values. It shares baptism and other rites with the Mau Mau but has been transformed largely into an extortion gang based on Kenya's profitable minibus industry. It is notorious for gruesome killings, including skinning and beheading enemies.

It claims thousands of members, many of them unemployed youths, and promotes a political agenda including opposition to Kenya's notoriously corrupt elites and redistribution of wealth to end huge disparities between rich and poor. Mungiki means 'multitude' in the Kikuyu language.

WHAT IS THEIR CONNECTION TO POLITICS?

The Mungiki have regularly been used as muscle for hire by Kikuyu politicians during elections, to intimidate rivals and voters from other tribes. But Mungiki spokesmen say they have been repeatedly betrayed by those politicians after the votes. They are also said to be in rivalry with police for revenue from the minibus routes. After a wave of macabre murders in 2007 the police mounted a major campaign against the Mungiki. Human rights groups, backed by a U.N. investigator, say a police death squad killed at least 500 young men and dumped their bodies in the countryside.

HOW HAVE THE MUNGIKI RE-EMERGED?

The Mungiki were remobilised by Kikuyu politicians during Kenya's bloody election crisis last year, to protect people under attack from other tribal militias and carry out revenge killings. Analysts say this has enabled them to quietly return to their rackets since the crisis was ended by the formation of a coalition government. However, the government says a report by U.N. investigator Philip Alston last week protesting over hundreds of alleged extrajudicial killings emboldened the Mungiki to carry out protests on Thursday that paralysed much of public transport in the outskirts of Nairobi and central Kenya. Shopkeepers and minibus drivers said they were intimidated into not operating by roaming Mungiki gangs.

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF THE ASSASSINATIONS?

Hours after government spokesman Alfred Mutua called human rights campaigners Kamau Kingara and Paul Oulo a front for the Mungiki, they were murdered by a group of gunmen in central Nairobi.

Kingara's Oscar Foundation helped organise Thursday's protests, said to be on behalf of relatives of murdered Mungiki suspects. The killings caused an outcry by human rights organisations and Alston said they must be investigated by a foreign police force. Police denied they were responsible. The U.N. investigator interviewed both the murdered men during a 10-day visit to Kenya last month.

WHY IS THE MUNGIKI PROBLEM SIGNIFICANT?

The assassinations have fuelled allegations by human rights groups that police and authorities kill enemies with impunity. Both these charges and the re-emergence of a brutal crime gang have thrown into question the rule of law and damaged the image of Kenya, which is trying to attract back foreign investment after the election crisis and to counteract the effects of the global economic crisis. The latest situation also further damages the coalition government, set up a year ago to end the election crisis and overcome deeply damaging ethnic tensions. Both Kenyans and foreign donors are deeply disillusioned by the inertia of the government, which was given disastrously low ratings in a recent opinion poll. (Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Video Confession by Kenyan Police Officer--on Extrajudicial Killings 2008

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